Columbia University has announced a plan to spend $15 million to diversify its faculty. The funds will be used for a range of efforts, including experiments with new strategies for search committees, improvements in child care and other programs that help faculty members balance professional and personal responsibilities, and sponsorship of lectures and other programs. Special emphasis will go to recruiting in the sciences.

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Columbia University has announced a plan to spend $15 million to diversify its faculty. The funds will be used for a range of efforts, including experiments with new strategies for search committees, improvements in child care and other programs that help faculty members balance professional and personal responsibilities, and sponsorship of lectures and other programs. Special emphasis will go to recruiting in the sciences. Columbia hopes that the funds will allow the university to add between 15 and 20 female or minority scholars to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences over the next three to five years. In May, Harvard University announced that it would spend at least $50 million to recruit more women to its faculty.

The University of California said late Tuesday that it had secured a $2.4 billion settlement from the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce in the securities fraud lawsuit against Enron Corp. in which the university is the lead plaintiff. To date, lawyers for the university has recovered more than $7 billion for itself and the other plaintiffs suing Enron and its financial backers for allegedly defrauding investors in the company.

Purdue University has removed the name of Earl Butz from an auditorium that had honored him as an alumnus, donor, and former dean, according to the West Lafayette Journal and Courier. Butz was U.S. secretary of agriculture, but left that position in 1976 amid controversy over offensive statements about black people. Black students said that they were insulted by the university honoring Butz, who is now 96.

An assistant football coach at Cerritos College was arrested Monday on charges of securing more than $150,000 in federal grants for football players who were ineligible for aid, the Los Angeles County district attorney's office announced. Patrick Callahan, the assistant coach, was not available for comment, and was being held on $70,000 bond.